


Vinny gets a penalty

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Vinny gets a life [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey Vinny, still doing that whole virgin shit to turn into a super goalie?” Bergen asks. “‘Cause man, gotta break it to you, you’re never going to be a starter, so maybe you should give up and get your dick wet already.”</p>
<p>Thomas stabs at him with his stick. He isn’t proud of it, especially since an icing gets nullified when a dumbass goalie puts his team on the penalty kill between plays with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vinny gets a penalty

Thomas’ life was easier when he thought he’d be alone forever, and didn’t mind that thought. Not alone, alone -- he had friends, team, family who supported him and loved him unconditionally. He wasn’t lonely or anything. He was just never going to join in on the locker room talk, not the blow-by-blows -- literally -- or even the chastened romantic stuff, like the panic that overtook the room when Valentine’s Day came up and everyone started trading ideas. 

Then he falls in love with his best friend, because he’s apparently a giant cliche. He didn’t think you could be a giant cliche if you didn’t even want anyone, exactly, but apparently he was wrong. So, so wrong.

Anton likes girls. He isn’t showy about it or anything, doesn’t tell exaggerated stories in the locker room like some of the guys do, or make an idiot of himself when they go out, hitting on anyone in a skirt. He doesn’t act like anyone but himself about it, quiet, restrained, and when some of the rookies are getting laughed at, girls come up to Anton like they’re magnetized. He doesn’t talk about it, but more often than not he’s not heading out alone. Girls like Anton, and Thomas does too, in a way that makes his stomach lurch a little, but not in the way he thinks he’s supposed to, not even in the way he’d been taught to dread.

Thomas and Anton are basically inseparable, and the room likes to make a lot of it. Jokes about making them the number one Habs couple so they can stop being nice to Riley (as if they would, Riley’s like the only thing Senator anyone can stand, and most of them probably like him better than Lapointe, because none of them have to deal with Riley caffeine deprived and bitchy in the morning). Jokes about Anton being Thomas’ Russian bride, and Thomas being his green card, before Anton mutters dire threats about asking to be traded to an American team and taking Thomas with him as _his_ green card bride. Thomas wouldn’t let Anton leave without him, that’s true, Anton’s basically as integral to Thomas’ goaltending as his stick or his blocker. Even when he’s not on the ice, he helps. Jokes that Thomas is in love with him for his shot blocking, which, hey, it’s beautiful fucking shot blocking.

Thomas is maybe kind of in love with him, but he doesn’t want him, which he thinks is supposed to be part of it. He’d worried, when he was younger. He’d worried, in Juniors, when all anyone was talking about was girls and how far they were letting them go, about the fact he didn’t want to go anywhere with girls, not really. He’s heard all the jokes in the room, and then sharper ones once Lapointe and Riley came out, before they were on the roster, the shit thrown around in Hamilton whenever the Marlies came to town. But he doesn’t want that either, not really, and he thinks the guys would understand him not liking girls because he’s busy staring at Anton’s ass, especially since they’ve got Lapointe on the roster to keep them in line the second they start spouting shit. He doesn’t think any of them would understand the fact that he isn’t interested in any of it. 

It’s not like he can tell anyone, because it’s not like anyone would believe him. That yeah, he’s in love with Tony, but in the way he saw his parents in love with each other as a child, casual pecks, making dinner together, his dad’s hand brushing his mom’s waist when he passed her the lettuce, gently teasing her when she got lost in her head. Going to sleep on opposite sides of the bed and sleeping peacefully through the night, except when Thomas had nightmares and crawled between them, bridged safely on both sides from any monsters that might linger.

He knows now their relationship wasn’t that, or not only that; he has a working knowledge of biology and they have a son, which is pretty easy math, but that image he had as a little boy, he wants that, exactly that, and he knows if he explained that to anyone, Anton included, they’d figure he was lying, or in denial, or something, that when he said that it meant he wanted that, maybe, but also the rest, because that’s what you want when you’re in love, that’s what it means to be in love, that’s what makes it different than friendship. What Thomas wants isn’t friendship. He has friends, he has a lot of friends, he’s a friendly guy. Anton’s his friend, his best friend, and he loves him and he doesn’t want to have sex with him, and that’s basically the exact definition of friendship. That should be all he wants.

It’s not. 

Thomas doesn’t pick up like the other single guys. Most of the guys assume he’s got a girlfriend in Sudbury or Hamilton or something, and honestly it just seems easier to let them think that. Anton knows he doesn’t, and he asked about it, early on, looking awkward because it isn’t really in his nature to pry, said, “you don’t pick up,” even enough, but pretty obviously a question. 

“Don’t want to,” Thomas replied, easy, and Anton left it at that until two days later, when one morning, handing off the shower to Thomas, he said, statement this time, “If you were gay you’d tell me.”

“Yep,” Thomas said. 

“You’re not,” Anton said.

“Nope,” Thomas agreed, and went and took his shower, and that was that. 

*

At least, that was that for Anton. Anton is uncurious and uncomfortable prying, and Thomas loves his awkward inscrutable face. Other people are less likely to let him off, and it was uncomfortable as a teenager, and embarrassing in the A, but on big ice, it leaves him wide open.

Calgary ices the puck, and of course that’s the moment Molson decides he has a pressing need for an equipment change. Suspicious, but he’s got a good rep, so the refs let him wander back to the bench while the fourth line catches their breath and Montreal sends out the first. Bergen’s still chilling by the crease, and Thomas is less defensive about it than he’d be with any of the rest, because he was a Bulldog, shared the room with Thomas for a couple years.

The problem with sharing a room with a guy for years, though, is he tends to know you pretty well, and the second he isn’t on your side anymore, none of that shit is sacred.

“Hey Vinny, still doing that whole virgin shit to turn into a super goalie?” Bergen asks. “‘Cause man, gotta break it to you, you’re never going to be a starter, so maybe you should give up and get your dick wet already.”

Thomas stabs at him with his stick. He isn’t proud of it, especially since an icing gets nullified when a dumbass goalie puts his team on the penalty kill between plays with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.

“Could have given me roughing, at least,” Thomas mumbles to Fournier after the first. They killed that penalty, so it’s no harm done, exactly, but he’s a little embarrassed about it. At least there wasn’t anyone close enough to hear Bergen. Anton had been looking vaguely murderous in Bergen’s direction, and they’d been beer pong partners back in Hamilton. They’d wiped the floor with the competition. “Or hell, spearing. It sounds better.”

“You’re a dumb shit, Vinny,” Fournier murmurs to him in French. 

“Yeah,” Anton chimes in from above. “Dumb shit.” 

“You’ve lived in Montreal how many years and this is the only French you know?” Fournier asks incredulously.

“It’s the only French Vinny deserves,” Anton says, and then, “head’s up,” and tosses Thomas a cherry gatorade he catches distractedly.

“Where’s my gatorade?” Fournier asks.

“Go make a rookie do it, I’m not your fucking slave,” Anton says, and wanders off.

“He’s only nice to you,” Fournier says sadly.

“You both literally just called me a dumb shit,” Thomas argues.

“Yeah, but we mean it with love,” Fournier says. “You moron.”

“You give love a bad name,” Thomas says idly, and submits peacefully when Fournier shoves him. 

“Drink your sugar water,” Anton yells across the room. 

“With love,” Fournier repeats. 

Honestly, it should be all he needs, a bottle of gatorade and two grumps mocking him, Lapointe looking at him across the room like he can read his mind, which he can’t, thanks, and Thomas has wriggled comfortably out of every single one-on-one chat Lapointe’s tried since they started sharing a locker room, because he doesn’t actually need a gay yenta, though he can get why Lapointe’s confused. Thomas and Anton are stealing his True Love thunder, it must be killing him inside.

“Open this for me,” Thomas says.

“If you take your fucking blocker off you can do it yourself,” Fournier says, but opens it for him anyway. 

Eh, it’s all he needs today.


End file.
